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In May 2024, Scarlett Johansson accused OpenAI of making ChatGPT’s “Sky” voice sound “eerily similar” to her after she declined Sam Altman’s request to voice the chatbot. OpenAI denied that Sky was intended to imitate her, said the voice belonged to another actor who had been cast earlier, and paused Sky soon after the dispute became public. The allegation was never established by a court ruling.
What happened with ChatGPT’s Sky voice?
On May 13, 2024, OpenAI demonstrated GPT-4o, a model designed to respond to spoken conversation in real time. One of the voices used in the demonstrations was called Sky. Many listeners compared its tone and delivery with Johansson’s voice, especially her performance as Samantha, the AI assistant in the 2013 film Her.
That comparison became more pointed because Altman posted the single word “her” on X on the day of the demonstration. The post was widely understood as a reference to the film. It was not an explicit admission that Sky was based on Johansson, but it helped fuel the perception that OpenAI was deliberately invoking the film and her performance.
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What Johansson said
In a statement released on May 20, Johansson said Altman had approached her in September 2023 about voicing ChatGPT. She said she declined for personal reasons. According to her account, two days before the GPT-4o demonstration, her representatives contacted OpenAI after hearing Sky. Johansson said she was “shocked,” “angered” and “in disbelief” at how similar the voice sounded to hers.
Johansson alleged that OpenAI had recreated or closely imitated her voice without her consent. She also said she had hired legal counsel, whose letters sought an explanation of how Sky was created. Those details are Johansson’s account; they should not be treated as independently proven facts. Contemporary reporting summarized her statement and the company’s response, including the Associated Press chronology.
OpenAI’s response and its timeline defense
OpenAI said Sky was performed by a different professional actor speaking in her own natural voice, and that the actor had been cast before the company approached Johansson. The company said it had worked with voice actors and casting professionals to select five voices for ChatGPT, with recordings made before GPT-4o’s public launch. It also said it had approached Johansson because it believed her voice could be comforting to users.
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The chronology matters. Johansson’s account and the perceived resemblance led some people to infer that Sky was created as a substitute after she turned down the offer. OpenAI’s stated timeline directly disputes that implication: it says Sky’s actor had already been chosen. That claim does not, by itself, settle whether the voice was intentionally designed or directed to evoke Johansson, but it is central to the company’s defense.
OpenAI paused Sky while denying that it had used Johansson’s voice or deliberately imitated her. A pause can be a response to public concern and confusion; it is not an admission of legal responsibility. Coverage of the suspension reported the action as the dispute unfolded.
Cloning, a sound-alike and imitation are different claims
The word “copy” can obscure several distinct possibilities:
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- Direct voice cloning: A system is trained on or otherwise derived from Johansson’s recordings to reproduce her voice. The sources cited here do not establish that OpenAI used her private recordings or made a literal digital clone.
- Human sound-alike performance: Another actor performs a voice that listeners consider similar. That can happen without using the celebrity’s recordings, though deliberate commercial resemblance could still raise legal questions.
- Intentional stylistic evocation: A company directs or designs a voice to call a particular person or character to mind, whether or not it uses that person’s recordings.
Listeners’ comparisons and Johansson’s reaction support the fact that many people perceived a resemblance. They do not, by themselves, prove which production method OpenAI used or what it intended. Reporting that examined the casting and available evidence, including The Washington Post’s account, should be read alongside OpenAI’s own explanation and Johansson’s allegation rather than as a court determination.
Was the voice dispute illegal?
A possible legal route discussed in coverage was the right of publicity: a person’s ability, under applicable law, to control certain commercial uses of their identity. Depending on the jurisdiction, identity may include a recognizable voice. The analysis would not necessarily turn only on whether recordings were copied. Questions could include whether listeners would recognize the voice as Johansson’s, whether OpenAI intentionally evoked her identity, whether the use was commercial, and whether the product’s expressive or technological context receives legal protection.
Cases involving performers such as Bette Midler and Tom Waits show why a human impersonator does not automatically eliminate the issue: courts have considered claims involving commercial use of distinctive voices. But those cases do not dictate the outcome here. Applicable law varies by state, and questions involving a conversational AI product may differ from those involving an advertisement or a song. A legal overview from Georgetown University discusses the potential right-of-publicity issues.
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The public record reflected in the cited coverage establishes a public accusation, legal letters seeking clarification and OpenAI’s decision to pause Sky—not a reported court judgment finding that OpenAI unlawfully cloned Johansson’s voice. Sending a legal letter is not the same as filing a lawsuit, and neither a pause nor a public denial resolves the legal merits.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why the controversy mattered beyond one voice
The dispute put two questions in sharp relief: whether performers have meaningful control over commercial uses of their voices, and how clearly AI companies explain who performed a voice and how it was selected. A voice can carry economic value as well as personal significance. If a company can evoke a performer’s recognizable identity without licensing it, that could affect the performer’s ability to bargain for compensation—even where no recording was copied.
SAG-AFTRA said it supported Johansson’s right to clarity and transparency and welcomed OpenAI’s decision to pause Sky. The union used the episode to argue for stronger protections against unauthorized replication or imitation of performers’ voices and likenesses. That is an industry and advocacy response, not an independent legal finding that OpenAI broke the law. SAG-AFTRA’s statement sets out its position.
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Since the controversy, state-level protections for voices and digital replicas have continued to develop. Tennessee’s ELVIS Act, California laws addressing digital-replica contracts and New York’s Digital Replica Contracts Act are examples of measures with distinct scopes and conditions. They do not apply as a blanket national rule, and later legislation cannot simply be applied retroactively to decide what happened in 2024. New York’s law is available at the state Senate site; SAG-AFTRA tracks broader policy developments in its AI resources.
The key distinction
Sky sounded similar to Johansson to many listeners, and Johansson said OpenAI had used a voice eerily like hers after she rejected an offer. OpenAI denied intentional imitation and said the voice belonged to another actor selected before its outreach. Altman’s “her” post made the association with Johansson and Her harder to ignore, but it did not prove that OpenAI cloned her voice. The episode remains important because public trust can be damaged by the appearance of borrowing a performer’s identity even when the technical and legal facts remain disputed.
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